Hemminger, 40, is a substitute coordinator for Ulster BOCES substitute coordinator. She is a lifetime resident of the district and with husband John has three children. She graduated from New Paltz High School in 1992 and earned a bachelors degree in psychology from SUNY New Paltz in 2000. She is a member of the New Paltz Reformed Church consistory and on the board of the New Paltz Recreation Soccer program.

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“I think the biggest challenge right now is the condition of the buildings ... the safety of the building and moving forward,” she said. “It’s been taken off the ballot for May. There was a mistake made by the architect so they took a pause. So I think the most important thing is to continue to work with the board and move forward with that project.”

Hemminger believes the board should “put a lot of pressure on Albany to trust local school districts to evaluate their students and teachers.”

Rausch, 64, is a program manager at IBM and seeking a sixth term on the board. He has lived in the district since 1980 and with wife Kimberly has six children. He graduated from Griffin High School, in Springfield, Illinois, in 1968; earned a bachelors degree in computer science from University of Illinois in 1972, and received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University in 1976. He is a volunteer with St. Joseph Church.

“Right now in New Paltz we’ve got aging facilities,” he said. “We kind of had a plan and then it kind of got slowed up a little bit.”

Rausch said that finding a “specific answer” to facilities issues is going to be difficult.

“Because of the economy, now is not a good time to be trying to do a lot of major repairs,” he said. “So we’ve got to basically figure out what needs to get done and come up with probably a multi-year plan to address how we’re going to keep the facilities in good shape without basically overburdening the taxpayer considerably.”

Greenfield, 50, is a musician and seeking a return to the board after serving one term that ended in 2011. He was unsuccessful in campaigns for Congress in 2002 on the Green Party line and in 2011 on the Working Families and Honest Service lines. He has lived in the district for 14 years with his wife, Teri Gil, and has three children. He graduated from John Adams High School in Ozone Park, Queens, in 1978 and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia College in Manhattan in 1982. He is a member of the New Paltz Fire Department, Ulster County Volunteer Firemen’s Association, member of the Ner Famid Society, volunteers with the Jewish Congregation of New Paltz, and is a member of the town and village Government Efficiency Committee.

“The facilities issues continues to be among the looming huge issues confronting us that we need to resolve here, especially with the current project now set in a state of limbo,” he said. “We need to study the law in a much more fine tuned manner to see how much breathing space we can actually find under the existing laws to solve our facilities problems and to solve the curriculum and testing evaluation problems and to source outside revenue.”

Greenfield contends that state and federal forces have made it difficult for local officials to effectively develop budgets.

“Probably the biggest single thing that we need to do is use our bully pulpit both locally and through lobbying in Albany and Washington to make new revenue streams available and stop shifting the burden away from the existing revenue streams and onto the local property tax.”

Bagley, 51, an accountant with Sono-Tek Corp., is seeking his second term on the board. He has lived in the district for nine years and with wife, Jennifer Quintero, and has four children. He graduated from All Hollows High School in Bronx in 1981, earned a bachelor’s degree in business economics from SUNY Oneonta in 1987, and received a master’s in business administration from Marist College in 2002.

“The most important [thing] is all this testing that is going to be taking place where neither the students nor the district will receive any actual benefit,” he said. “It is primarily to given New York state a gauge of how our teachers are doing. But it’s somewhat at the expense of our students and we really should not put them through that.”

Bagley said special education programs also need to be protected in the district budget.

“I think that this program needs to be strengthened and improved upon,” he said. “I feel that this is extremely important for those students who additional services so that they will not be behind in any of their studies.”